The American debate on immigration is often paralyzed by a fixation on illegal immigration and the toxic narrative of “jobs Americans refuse to do.” The debate seldom focuses on the profoundly important, humanitarian question of: how can we best ensure that immigrants and their children feel like equal participants in the American society?

There is an ongoing conflict between estrangement and fellowship as it relates to America’s attitude towards immigrants. Reihan Salam’s new book, entitled Melting Pot or Civil War?: A Son of Immigrants Makes the Case Against Open Borders[1], provides a deeply sympathetic discussion on this conflict. Salam notes that Americans must choose “whether we see the immigrants we welcome to our shores as permanent strangers to whom we have no real obligations other than to deliver them from the relative poverty of their homelands, or as free and equal citizens to whom we are pledging our loyalty in this generation and in those to come.”[2]The philosophy of the American “melting pot”[3]creates a narrative of hope for immigrants, in which new hybrid ethnicities and cultures are birthed from the integration of populations from separate geographic locale. In turn, economic dynamism, social integration, and intermarriage are promoted, which assist immigrants and native-born Americans to join forces in the duty of renovating and nourishing American culture.

However, current immigration policy tends to undercut the duty to integrate. As an example of this obstacle, Salam offers data that many immigrant families, even those with native-born children, struggle more than others to climb the ladder of opportunity and seldom achieve the theoretical American Dream. So how do immigrants break free of this cyclical discrimination and constant exclusion? Salam offers a possible outline for improving immigration politics and treating immigrants as equal participants in American society. He provides a more forward-looking reform of the immigration system by: “offering amnesty to the long-term resident unauthorized population, adopting a skills-based immigration system, and fighting the intergenerational transmission of poverty,” [4]which are potential remedies that may increase immigrant integration.

On its face, Salam’s remedies appear to be a positive starting point for reshaping American immigration. However, the dialogue surrounding American immigration and its laws are deeply rooted in issues that extend beyond the proposition of an immigration policy agenda. This article explores those profound issues.

UNDERSTANDING THE CONTEXT: THE JOURNEY NORTH

The normative reorientation of immigration policy should necessarily be concerned about the human rights of all. An affective reform of immigration policy should thus begin with an understanding of the reasons why individuals leave their native countries.

Statistics from the United Nations High Commissioner Refugees (UNHCR) show a 1,007 percent increase of asylum applications worldwide in 2017.[5]Amnesty International has documented the violence, poverty, and inequality, which couples with a lack of governmental protection to drive individuals to flee.

By way of example, natives of the region of the Northern Triangle (“Northern Triangle of Central America” or “NTCA”), consisting of Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador[6]have experienced alarming rates of violence. In fact, El Salvador has one of the highest homicide rates in Latin America, after Venezuela. There are 60 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants in El Salvador.

In Honduras the murder rate is 800 percent higher than that of the United States.[7]“Citizens face many risks, including forced recruitment of their children to criminal gangs, extortion, death threats, and even murder by the muras, which are powerful violent criminal groups that exercise territorial control in various parts of these countries.”[8]

Similarly, sexual violence against women and LGBTI communities is also widespread within Central America. Norma, a native of El Salvador who fled to the United States, described her ongoing trauma of being raped in El Salvador.

In late 2014, four gang members abducted Norma, and took her to an abandoned cemetery. Three of the four men raped her for hours. “They took their turns…they tied me by the hands. The stuffed my mouth so I would not scream. And when it was over, they threw me in the trash.” Norma contracted a sexually transmitted disease as a result of the rape. Her husband, a police officer, filed an official report, but Norma became increasing concerned when her children were continuously threatened by the local gang.

“They’d kill me. Gangs don’t forgive…If they didn’t harm me, they’d harm my children.” Norma tried moving to another part of El Salvador, she tried changing her phone number, and she tried remaining in the house for extended periods of time. Nonetheless, she and her family were continually threatened.

Having no other option, Norma, her husband, and their children decided to leave the country; they fled through Mexico with a coyote, or human smuggler. Norma, detained in the United States at the time of her interview with UNHCR, described her ongoing trauma of the rape: “I feel dirty, so very dirty. This is why I wake up not wanting to live. I feel I have sinned, and this sin lives inside me...Sometimes, I wake up and think it was just a nightmare, but then I feel the pain and remember it was not.”[9]Norma’s story is not atypical.

UNHCR interviewed more than 160 women who had similar experiences of being raped, assaulted, extorted, and threatened. They described seeing their family members murdered or abducted and watching their children being forcibly recruited by transnational criminal groups. Several woman from the NTCA mentioned that they took contraceptives before traveling, in order to reduce the possibility of becoming pregnant if they were raped during flight. Many women reported that coyotes sexually or physically abused them during transit.[10]

With authorities often unable to curtail the extreme violence, nor provide a system of redress, many women and their children are left with no reasonable choice but to run for their lives. But all too often, their journey to safety becomes a journey through hell.

POLICING IMMIGRANTS: MORE OBSTACLES IN THE ROAD TO SAFTEY

Once in the United States, undocumented immigrants are often treated like pariahs, criminals who take American jobs, menaces that terrorize our American neighborhoods, and leeches who sap American resources and exploit American generosity.

The reality is: there is no connection between undocumented immigrants and crime.[11]Yet still, undocumented immigrants are subject to a slew of inequities on United States’ soil. After successfully fleeing the perils of their native country, many undocumented immigrants have died in their fight for refuge and seeking protection.

In May 2010, Anastasio Hernandez Rojas was tased five times while he was handcuffed and surrounded by a dozen agents. Officers caught Rojas trying to return the United States after he was deported in order to reunite with his wife and five children.[12]

Jose Antonio Elena Rodriguez was sixteen in October 2012 when a border patrol officer shot him repeatedly in the back and head. The officer, whose name was not released for more than two years after the killing, claimed Jose had thrown rocks at him.[13]

Mariee Juarez, a nineteen month old, died weeks after being detained in a family detention center in Dilley, Texas. Her mother believes her death was due to poor medical care at the facility.[14]

Felipe Gomez Alonzo was eight in December 2018 and recently arrived to his fourth holding facility ran by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Felipe suffered from continuous fever and vomiting, and died on Christmas Eve at the holding facility. [15]

Immigration enforcement is increasingly mirroring criminal enforcement. The two areas are managed by the same actors. Thus, immigration enforcement is similarly susceptible to the abuses of discretion and other inequities. Additionally, undocumented immigrants are entitled to fewer constitutional protections than citizens. The criminal nature of immigration law has further limit the already disparate constitutional protections. Beyond the overwhelming criminality integrated with immigration law, inherent racism, political agendas, and the inclusion of multiple overlapping actors, limits accountability within immigration.

Officers enforcing immigration law can target day laborers, raid work sites, and set up checkpoints in public housing units. During raids, officers may consider race, and are permitted to arrest without individual probable cause, where arrests normally require “evidence which would ‘warrant a man of reasonable caution in the belief’ that a felony has been committed.”[16]

The cumulative effect of low criminal indictment of officers who have allegedly violated the law and lack of civil recovery for victims results in an accountability deficit. Undocumented immigrants who left their home countries in search of protection are currently being subjected to the terrorizing cruelties, and differential treatment associated with being labeled as illegal in our American society.

IMMIGRATION IN NORTH CAROLINA

Of North Carolina’s foreign-born population, Latin Americans make up the largest share, accounting for 53 percent of immigrants in the state. Nearly 1 in 12 North Carolina residents is an immigrant, while 1 in 15 is a native-born U.S. citizen with at least one immigrant parent. As immigrants constitute a large portion of our State, the inequities associated with immigration are also prominent within the State.[17]

After living almost a year in the basement of a Durham church, Samuel Oliver-Bruno, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico, was arrested in November 2018 by immigration authorities inside the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) office. USCIS had requested Oliver-Bruno to appear in person to complete requisites for his petition to delay his deportation. Oliver-Bruno’s faith leaders and family members accused USCIS and ICE of acting in concert and coordinating his arrest. Within the crowd of horrifying observers, twenty seven people were arrested for refusing to disperse.[18]

Additionally, local nonprofits throughout the Triangle are continuing this work of resistance, and working towards connecting undocumented immigrants with vital services in their acclimation to their new communities.

Church World Service-Durham opened in 2009 and has aided approximately 300 refugees every year in locating communal resources and social services. El Centro Hispano is also located in Durham and has been in existence for the last twenty-five years. They have been extremely successful in providing adequate education, and health care to immigrants.[19]

MAKE SAVING LIVES THE TOP PRIORITY

History has taught us that a society that is silent on issues are more susceptible to demagoguery and institutional paralysis. Silence and inactivity in our communities allows policymakers who are extremely resistant to reforming immigration policy to give individuals (like Donald Trump[20], and the Five Star movement in Italy[21]) the leverage to seize our power. Others continue the system of categorizing and labeling individuals as anything but a human being. The labeling system is prevalent within all communities, including immigrant communities, and is a major obstacle in the of a forward-thinking immigration trajectory.

The focus on an escalation of cultural panics, either about who we are or who we will be if we abandon identity labels and reform immigration policy, only adds to our generally dysfunctional immigration process. The deep imperfections of past and current immigration legislation and policy continues to stifle immigration reformation plans. This is unacceptable.

The priority in reshaping immigration law should be to save lives. As North Carolinians we must ensure our state and federal government takes the necessary steps to provide safe and legal avenues to asylum, while refraining to use detention and deportation as deterrents. The time is now.

References

[1]Salam, Reihan. Melting Pot or Civil War?: A Son of Immigrants Makes the Case Against Open Borders. New York, New York: Sentinel, 2018.

[2]Salam, Reihan. Melting Pot or Civil War?: A Son of Immigrants Makes the Case Against Open Borders. New York, New York: Sentinel, 2018.

[6]Serrano-Berthet, Rodrigo, and Humberto Lopez. “Crime and Violence in Central America: A Development Challenge.” The World Bank, 2011, siteresources.worldbank.org/INTLAC/Resources/FINAL_VOLUME_I_ENGLISH_CrimeAndViolence.pdf.

[8]“AMERICAS: Stuck at the Door, The Urgent Need for Protection of Central American Refugees, Asylum Seekers and Migrants in the Caravans.” Amnesty International, Peter Beneson House: Amnesty International Ltd , Nov. 2018, www.amnestyusa.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/STUCK-AT-THE-DOOR-en.pdf.

[9]“Women on the Run: First-Hand Accounts of Refugees Fleeing El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Mexico - A Study Conducted by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.” The UN Refugee Agency , 2015, www.acnur.org/fileadmin/Documentos/Publicaciones/2015/10228.pdf.

[10]Women on the Run: First-Hand Accounts of Refugees Fleeing El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Mexico - A Study Conducted by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.” The UN Refugee Agency , 2015, www.acnur.org/fileadmin/Documentos/Publicaciones/2015/10228.pdf.

[11]“Asylum in the United States.” American Immigration Council, 2 Jan. 2019, americanimmigrationcouncil.org/research/asylum-united-states.

[14]Ford, Kaelyn. “Mother of Toddler Who Died after Being Released from ICE Custody Files Wrongful Death Claim.” ABC News, ABC News Network, 29 Aug. 2018, abcnews.go.com/beta-story-container/US/mother-toddler-died-released-ice-custody-files-wrongful/story?id=57473060.

[15]Sacchetti, Maria. “Official: Guatemalan boy who died in U.S. custody tested positive for influenza B, final cause of death remains under investigation.” The Washington Post, The Washington Post, 28 December 2018, https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/immigration/father-whose-son-died-in-custody-knew-bringing-him-would-ease-entry-into-us/2018/12/27/4c210bfc-0a1d-11e9-85b6-41c0fe0c5b8f_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.340d53265048

[17]Wall, Julia. “Immigration in North Carolina: Where are people coming from, and Where do they live?.” The News & Observer, 2 August 2018, https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/article215585505.html